Awards seasons tend to crown unlikely royalty, but few ascensions have felt as seismic as Teyana Taylor’s this year. One Battle After Another, the combustible, paranoid action-thriller from Paul Thomas Anderson, is marching into the 98th Academy Awards with 13 nominations, already fortified by wins at the Golden Globes, BAFTAs and Critics’ Choice. Taylor, who took home a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of the radical firebrand Perfidia Beverly Hills, has become the film’s most fascinating aftershock. 

When a role detonates like this, culturally, politically, sartorially, you do not just walk away from it. You hold on. And she is holding on. Apparently, Teyana Taylor is actively lobbying Anderson for a continuation.

In an interview with Indie Wire, Teyana Taylor revealed she has persistently been asking director Paul Thomas Anderson to make a sequel centered around her One Battle After Another character. 

“The conversations are very, very real, I want to give everybody confirmation that I am currently begging [Anderson] to give us that,” the actress exclaimed. The plea, she insists, is playful, but adamant, as well as purpose-driven. The actresses wished for a sequel which, in fact, would revolve around Perfidia's whereabouts and activities during the 16 year gap. 

In the film, Perfidia is a leading figure in the activist collective French 75, once romantically entangled with Leonardo DiCaprio’s Bob Ferguson and mother to Willa (Chase Infiniti). When a botched operation against Sean Penn’s military officer spirals, Perfidia cuts a deal to avoid prison, effectively selling out Bob and forcing her daughter into a life off-grid. Her final promise, to reunite with Willa “when it’s right, and it’s safe” lingers like unfinished business.

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But that unresolved promise is precisely where the sequel conversation finds its pulse.

If One Battle After Another was about ideological tussles, a sequel could be about reckoning. Paul Thomas Anderson’s film ends on ambiguity: Willa walking out the door, Bob in hiding, Perfidia exiled in Mexico. Teyana Taylor has mused about exploring those lost 16 years, the exile, the guilt, the recalibration of belief. Did Perfidia double down on revolution, or did she quietly dismantle it from within? Did she watch her daughter from afar? Did she ever stop calculating?

The awards momentum only intensifies the speculation. With 13 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, and Leonardo DiCaprio’s star wattage anchoring the campaign, the film has dominated 2026’s conversation. Teyana Taylor’s breakout, years after her screen debut in 2010, has felt almost like a coronation that the actress-slash-singer seems keen on preserving. 

While Anderson has historically resisted sequels, guarding his filmography like a sealed archive, there might be a chance even he senses the narrative elasticity here that Teyana Taylor has felt. 

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Should Paul Thomas Anderson open One Battle After Another? Or is the power in leaving revolution unfinished? Share your thoughts in the comments.